EVIL LOVE

Regina didn't know what to think about it at all. She stood still for a while in the diner, not caring about Emma's concerned look or Rumpel's ironic remarks. Everyone had heard those words and all she wanted in that moment was just to disappear, and yet she found herself unable to move.

"Regina, are you okay?"

The mayor was suddenly brought back to reality by Snow's question, if only to move her hand aside from her own arm. Casting her a meaningful glance, she started to walk and she soon reached the door. When she was out in the lonely night under the lonely sky, she couldn't help but feel even more desperate as the weight of the conversation she had just had was still echoing in her mind.

"Please stop it!" Robin finally said in a slight annoyed tone.

"What? Stop, what?" she asked with a provocative smile "I won't let them mock me like that!"

"Have you ever thought that maybe… Never mind"

"No, I want to know! What were you going to say?"

He looked at her for a moment and then sighed heavily.

"Maybe you deserve it"

Everyone in the room gasped, but she didn't pay attention to anyone. She just looked back at him and tried hard not to show the tears that instinctively started to form in her eyes. He wasn't going to apologize, in fact the only think he did after that was to climb on the stairs and leave that sort of party.

What was there to celebrate if they still considered her nothing but evil? And no matter how hard she tried to prove it wrong, no matter how hard she tried to make it right this time, happy ending was always something out of her hands?

Regina shook her head and a small smile crossed her lips when she gave a look around: she didn't even realize that she was now in Storybrooke port, exactly in front of Hook's ship. She just needed to talk to someone who wouldn't judge, that's what she said to herself, climbing aboard and looking for the pirate with her eyes. Or maybe she just wanted to get drunk and needed a good company; it could have been a good occasion to finally taste that famous rum after all.

"Hey, what are you doing here, love?"

He turned in a twitch as soon as he heard the sound of her heels on the wood and instantly greeted her with a pleasantly surprised look.

She just shrugged and approached him a bit more.

"Something happened, isn't it? It was the crocodile or the secret – keeper?" he asked again, noticing with just one look her sad mood.

She gave him a weak smile hearing the last word. It was how he had started lately to refer to Snow, after she told him one night about her story and the role that the princess had in her unhappiness. Chat after chat, the two had become really close in the last period, forming an unexpected alliance of broken hearts, even if until that night the only official broken heart was his after Emma's choice.

"Nothing, I just guess it's time to taste that rum of yours…" she said in a unconvincing attempt of joke.

"Aye, it's that Robin Hood guy, then"

Regina looked up at the sky. She hated how much they knew the one about the other now, when only less than a year before they had tried to kill each other.

"Yes, it is" she admitted with a sigh.

And she hated even more how she easily surrounded to the intimacy they had created.

"What did he do?" he asked with a hint of concern in his voice.

"We had a little argument, but I think we both realize that there isn't any chance for anything to happen between us… Because well, he thinks I'm evil" she explained shaking her head with a joyless laugh.

Hook stared at her for a moment, probably getting lost in his own thoughts and then slowly nodded.

"He's right, love" he finally said "You are indeed evil"

As soon as the words escaped his lips, he realized how they must have sounded like and wished he could take them back.

"I can't believe it!" she exclaimed with widened eyes.

"No, let me explain…" he said standing up and trying to come closer to her.

"That's enough really…" she interrupted him taking a step back "You know what? I will not stand here listening to your insults, because actually I don't accept it, not from someone like you…"

This time was Regina the one to be interrupted and she found herself wrapped into his strong arms.

"Now you will listen to me okay?" he whispered into her ear

Feeling him so unexpectedly close, she couldn't help but shiver and she ended up silently nodding.

"Face it: you are evil, and so am I… We are evil, it is part of us, it tells about our strength, our pain, our hope too and well, Regina, if people don't understand every part of us, including the bad things, well they don't deserve us"

He finished that confession with a sincere smile, even thought she couldn't see that because now he was actually hugging her.

"Finally we are answering to that question then!" the queen said after some time, finding the courage to wiggle out of his warm embrace.

"Which question?" he asked back slightly confused, letting her go, but still holding gently her arms.

"Villains can't get happy endings" she reminded him, recalling the memory of their first philosophic conversation on that same ship.

"And why is that?"

"I'll never find someone who understands everything of me" she explained obviously.

"I understand" he simply answered hinting a smile, that had unusually nothing of mischievous.

The first instinct to that statement was to giggle, but looking straight into his eyes, she couldn't find anything funny at all. Then, wasn't she there in the first place right because she thought he could understand?

"I'm not talking about friendship, Captain… I'm talking about love" she managed to say, looking down and sighing heavily.

"Regina, you know that you can't have a pure happy puppy love, don't you?" he joked a bit in the choice of the adjectives, but then he quickly regained a serious expression, putting his only hand under her chin to make her look at him again.

"That's what I was saying, I won't have a love again"

"No" he denied, moving his hand to her cheek and caressing it gently "We can have a happy ending and a even more special kind of love" he added lowering his tone as if it was revealing the map of a pirate treasure.

She raised an eyebrow and bit her lower lip, not able to connect the two sentences that contradictory as they were seemed to make perfect sense for the man.

"And what kind of love would that be?"

Regina's ironic laugh died in her throat as her lips were captured by his in a kiss. It was just a sweet contact at first, but when he felt her kissing him back, it quickly became hungry and passionate, as their tongues found something better to do than talk. Breaking the kiss for mere need of air, he looked at her and finally answered to the question in a breathless whisper.

"An evil love, of course"

I'm actually like this: "I don't care, I shipt it!" LoL This one-shot explains why I ship Hooked Queen so much: they are one the mirror of the other. This is also the longest fic I've ever written in English and not before in Italian!

I hope you liked it, also if you want to give me some prompts or ideas for another one-shot I would be glad to write it:)